So much good stuff on the internet of late.
Have you visited Reading While White? This post, especially, I thought, was a great dissection of why it’s tricky to write dialect as an outsider.
Once again Malinda Lo has gone out of her way to be helpful to the writing world. Here’s a great post she has up about researching diversity.
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, Author Meg Rosoff said some things on Facebook and the internet exploded. Here’s a good round-up of what happened. And here’s another good set of thoughts on the matter. I’m having a hard time putting my own thoughts on the matter into words. It’s clear that Rosoff’s words are insensitive and born from a position of “Unbearable Whiteness” as one blogger phrased it. She’s also dead wrong about what’s saying.
Readers need windows and mirrors in the stories they’re engaged with. Both are so important. One experience as a marginalized person does not equal another’s. Books should never teach a lesson or have a “job” to do. But every book has an agenda of some kind. We can’t deny that. As authors we have an agenda when we tell a story, even if it’s just to entertain, though rarely is it that simplistic.
This conversation about the need for a picture book about a queer black boy is like so many current hot topics in our world today. Divisive and polarizing. Where is the open-minded dialogue? Where is the listening?
I hope Rosoff finds it in her to really listen to what people are saying and perhaps further respond to this topic. That would be the best outcome from all of this.